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The four-day workweek dream has been picking up steam all over the world and has already been trialled in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Irelands, the US, and the UK, among others.

UK-based campaign 4 Day Week Global has been leading the charge, followed by the world’s largest trial of a shorter working week based in Iceland.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many people to raise their heads out of the hustle funk that they became used to, allowing time to reprioritise their physical and mental health.

This is also amidst the conversation around ‘quiet quitting’, which is also largely about finding that joie de vivre outside one’s office hours.

The question we’re all thinking about at this stage is whether South Africa will ever be ready for the four-day workweek.

The fact that our local news media is at least picking up the conversation is a really positive sign, at least.

702‘s Wasanga Mehana spoke to Charlotte Lockhart, the founder and managing director at 4 Day Week Global, about where South Africa stands on the matter:

“All of the evidence shows that companies can maintain and improve their productivity, and have all their staff working reduced times.

But we’re not saying reduce pay. We have a principal called the 100-80-100 rule. That’s 100% pay, 80% time and 100% productivity.”

You can listen to that chat here:

That’s the thing – adopting a four-day workweek is not about the easy life. It’s about streamlining productivity and collaborating with employees’ needs, which are excellent for a company’s bottom line.

While it is true that the Millennial and Gen Z generations are especially keen to drop the old-school business models, it is not because this “snowflake generation” doesn’t want to work hard, but rather that they want a work-life balance.

How can anyone argue with that?

Companies also need to remember that knocking on the “snowflake generation” won’t do any good as they are the workforce of the future – CEOs, no matter how old-fashioned, are going to have to give them a little of what they need.

News24 also did a write-up regarding Simon Girling finding immense advantage with the four-day workweek, having adopted the model for his UK-based recruitment company Girling Jones at the start of the year:

In the first half of the year, sales were up 17%, and the firm says all other metrics show that it was “the most productive six months, per head, since our launch in 2011”.

The company’s founder and director, Simon Girling, reckons productivity is up 20% – despite the 20% cut in the number of days worked.

If you were about to argue that businesses might lose money with the four-day workweek, you can clearly see that the stats don’t exactly point in that direction.

Auckland-based financial services group Perpetual Guardian also made the move permanently in 2018 and found that employee productivity was up 20%.

Microsoft Japan, which also trialled the concept in 2019, reported a productivity boost of 40%.

Fortune wrote about how the four-day workweek could help combat inflation, while Entrepreneur argues that this model can lead to more satisfied workers, narrow the gender gap, and the return on investment is better than expected.

It is actually more of a challenge to find the downsides of a shorter working week. That begs the question, why so slow, South Africa?

[sources:702&news24&fortune&entrepreneur]